


3 Flufflets

by RoseCathy



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2489246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseCathy/pseuds/RoseCathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The first two have already been posted to Tumblr.</p>
    </blockquote>





	3 Flufflets

**Author's Note:**

> The first two have already been posted to Tumblr.

**I. Acceptance**

The first time, Rimmer looked down at his hands and murmured something incomprehensible.

The second time, he touched a hand to his own face as if to verify the statement.

The third and fourth time, which came in quick succession as a prelude to a desperate noise, the likes of which he’d never before heard in real life (or death), he ignored it and continued what he was doing. To be fair, neither of them was in a position to stop and discuss anything.

The fifth time, Rimmer had a reply: “I should be saying that to you.” Lister laughed, “Yeah, but I already know I’m beautiful.” He did, too, since Rimmer told him at least once a day in one way or another.

This time, for the first time, Rimmer showed signs of believing him — shining, wonder-filled eyes over a faint blush, then a smile, which Lister promptly kissed, tasting joy and a dissipating ache and _free._

  


**II. Bed Rest**

The way Kryten was tutting, most people would have assumed that Lister had tuberculosis, or at the very least space bronchitis.

“It’s just a cold,” Rimmer objected with what he took to be callous disregard. As much progress as he’d made in his study of humans, he hadn’t quite got the hang of reading Mr Rimmer, especially where Mr Lister was concerned.

Cat, for his part, had been driven out of the room some time ago by the sickeningly tender movements of a hologrammatic hand over Lister’s face and hair.

“If you insist on staying here rather than in the medi-bay, sir, I hereby forbid you from leaving this bed for the next 24 hours.”

“Aw, Kryten - ”

“I _insist_.” Lister washed down whatever he had been about to say with a large amount of mucus. “Now, I’ll be back periodically to check on you, but if you need anything, _anything_ at all…”

“Why do we let him act like our mum?” Rimmer grumbled after the door had shut behind Kryten.

“Eh?”

“I don’t know, sometimes I feel like…” He lay down next to Lister and pulled a duvet over them both. “That’s why I was sitting. I feel like I’m not allowed to touch you when he’s around.”

“ _Really?_ ”

Rimmer had just one glimpse of a smirk before he had the wind knocked out of him. Suddenly there was a mouth mashed against his and hands all over his body, it seemed, lingering over and awakening the most interesting areas with remarkable speed.

“Lister,” he tried to say.

“Mm?”

“Don’t think…” — oh, thank smeg, he could breathe again — “this is a good idea. You’re ill.”

“So?”

“No, don’t do that - ” The lust-lit gaze always got him; maybe he could break the precedent today. “Look, you’re already overheated and you’ve no energy as it is, and Kryten could walk in at any moment.”

Lister grinned. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“And your face is covered in slime and god knows what else…” Rimmer broke off as Lister leaned in and kissed him again, slow and soft this time, stroking the small newly grown curls just above his left ear. He was doomed, doomed forever to repeat history.

“How did that feel?”

“Revolting,” he whispered, but his fingers were already fumbling with the red buttons, his leg moving between Lister’s.

“You’re so warm,” Lister murmured happily, stealing his thoughts.

A part of Rimmer expected to see actual flames when a bare arm snaked around his equally bare waist to pull him closer, or when he rolled off his side to look deep into pleading eyes, or when Lister groaned into his skin between soft coughs. He briefly pictured hologrammatic come as the beginning sparks of a fire, but that was absurd…all the same, he got up over Lister’s whine of protest to retrieve a moistened towel.

As he cleaned off what he could, he followed Lister’s stare to a packet of cigarettes on the table. “Don’t even think about it,” he admonished.

Lister turned his sleepy eyes on Rimmer. “Come back here, smegger,” he teased hoarsely, his voice temporarily out of commission. “Then I won’t think about it.”

  


**III. Sleep**

Of course he’d pretended before (almost every night, if he was honest; he wasn’t), but the reality was something else.

After a lifetime of relying on hearsay, he verified for himself the problem of superfluous limbs. Legs could intertwine pleasantly enough, but what did you do with arms? In a brief moment of silliness, he considered going soft-light. Which would have rendered the whole exercise useless.

In the end, Rimmer enlisted his right arm to be a pillow (he supposed it wouldn’t lose circulation, anyhow) while his left arm did the necessary draping, inward sweeping, and securing.

 _You still smell like cigarettes,_ he might have complained. He couldn’t be sure.

He did remember the peace. The unheard-of cosiness of two bodies under the same duvet. Lister’s exhales tickling his neck. The minute stretches and wriggles as they fell asleep, and again as…“Five more minutes, man.”

“It’s not morning yet,” Rimmer whispered, startling himself even through a thick, sleepy haze. You spent one day being…not alone and it turned you into someone who whispered soothing things like “Go back to sleep.”

Lister seemed to accept both the reassurance and the whispering. “Yes, you’re very pretty,” he mumbled, and burrowed closer.

No one had warned Rimmer that if he went to bed like this, curled around someone else, he wouldn’t want to get up. He’d guessed that for himself, having been lulled to sleep quite often by an imagined face buried in his shoulder and imagined arms around his body. Some mornings, he’d force his eyes open so as not to miss anything good, only to find that there was nothing to miss.

“Rimmer?”

And now, the moment of truth. He began the arduous task of moving his eyelids - 

Lips brushed his jaw. _Just a little more effort -_ then he’d know - 

He blinked. Seconds later, a snore vibrated through his ribs and, oddly, settled somewhere near his heart.


End file.
